Dark Souls II Runs On A Brand New Engine

Details of the surprise Dark Souls II announcement have so far been scarce. We know that it's going to be released on the current generation of consoles, and that its dark, epic fantasy tone will match that of previous Souls games. I've been salivating for more, and thankfully further details surfaced in a new interview with 4gamer today.

Speaking to the Japanese site, From Software's Tomohiro Shibuya and Hidetaka Miyazaki touched on some of the questions that fans have been wondering about most, including the new engine, the direction that the story will take and the layout of Dark Souls II's world.

Don't know if it will at the same time, but From Soft have shown that they want to take Souls to a major multi-platform franchise. Did the PC version have problems? I haven't played it on PC... why does it need more love? I know a lot of people want it on Wii U since the gamepad would be good for menu navigation. The more people who experience Souls, the better IMO.

The PC version was a straight port and didn't even support resolutions beyond what the consoles did. A mod had to be made to allow the game to even take advantage of the extra power the PC version could have used.

I want to see the game get the same attention that something like Borderlands 2 or Sleeping Dogs got. Lots of options and tweaking to get the game as smooth and pretty as can be. The original Dark Souls certainly didn't have that.

And hopefully it will help a bit with that Lag-backstabbing issue which can get fucking horrendous with the cheap deaths and how every PVP'er seeks not to have a good fucking fight, all they do is try to exploit every little second to get behind your back and not really attempt to use any skill in battle. HURRR BACKAACKAKABACKBACKBACKSTAB HNNNNG

-Orgasms if wins the fight. RAGE QUIT if dies and fails the backstab-technique-

Haha, you have no idea... When I first picked up Demon's Souls, I was running through the Storm Shrine (can't remember it's full name), I got invaded by the SAME guy like five times. He kept killing me with his Makato sword by stabbing me in the back even when he was clearly in front of me. I eventually gave up and just did some crystal gecko farming.

I love the Souls games; easily in my top 5 favorite games overall of this gen, but their netcodes could seriously use some work.

I'm sure the PC version will turn out better this time. Seems like they didn't have enough time and resources with the original Dark Souls port and probably weren't expecting a fan petition for their game.

I'm kind of glad they use a new engine rather than the PhyreEngine. I just hope they still use Havok for their middleware, I actually enjoy kicking the undead like rag-dolls and braking stuff! Hopefully this addresses that nasty slowdown that both Soul titles suffer from...